Sunday, December 04, 2005

Hong Sheng Restaurant (Cze Cha)

In all the years I've been in Singapore, I have never had cze cha, which is basically a stall that will cook all sorts of Chinese dishes as you sit out in the open on plastic chairs (you don't even really need a menu). This one, at Block 203 Toa Payoh North, has apparently been around for ages, and even has a near-top rating by Makansutra. We certainly got to try a huge spread tonight.

The meal started with some sort of claypot fish head stew, which had a nice touch thanks to the deep fried fish sitting in the middle. Other highlights included the shrimp paste chicken (not too unlike the wings at No. 5 Emerald Hill, although slightly harder to eat), some noodles called yee mee that had a nice rich almost butter-like taste, and that quintessential dish from Singapore, chili crab. I didn't like the chili crab here too much as it was a bit sweet, but nonetheless, the food here was decently good (even if all of them got rather goopy after a while).

Food-wise, it kinda reminded me of Cantonese restaurants back in San Francisco - sans air-conditioning, though. Don't come here if you're looking for a nice ambience - get ready to get down and dirty, and be prepared to eat with your hands (not to mention put ice in your beer - an appalling concept but not completely unreasonable in this warm weather).